Leap of Faith
by S. Faith
Summary: So what's got Bridget so distracted that she can't find the words to speak?  Movie universe, sort of.


**Leap of Faith**

By S. Faith, © 2012

Words: 1,151  
><span>Rating<span>: T / PG-13  
><span>Summary<span>: So what's got Bridget so distracted that she can't find the words to speak?  
><span>Disclaimer<span>: We all know who really owns these characters.  
><span>Notes<span>: A big thank you to F. for prompting this tale, written mostly over lunch break today.

* * *

><p>She was looking terribly nervous, more nervous than simple dinner at her flat warranted. He watched her flit from sofa to table to kitchen and back to sit on the sofa.<p>

"Bridget?" he asked.

"Yes?"

"About the wine you asked me if I wanted? I mean, I could go get it…"

"Oh, sorry." She popped up again and returned to the kitchen, where two glasses of wine were sitting; she retrieved them then returned with them.

"Is there something the matter?" he asked tenderly upon observing her hand was trembling a bit as she relinquished the red to him.

"No," she said, her voice more high-pitched than normal; she cleared her throat, then said "No" again. She exhaled loudly, then said quietly, as if to herself, "How nerve-wracking."

"Pardon?" he asked, perplexed.

"Nothing," she said quickly, turning her gaze to him once more. "Do you have any idea what day this is?"

His heart sank. Had he missed an important milestone in their relationship? Anniversary of first date? No, that was in December, and admittedly was much more than a date. Her birthday? No. Early November. It was just an ordinary February day—

"Oh, you mean that it's the twenty-ninth?" he asked as the realisation hit him that it was that once-every-four-years occurrence.

She smiled and nodded. "Yes, yes. Leap Day." She looked expectant, but he still had no idea to what she could be referring. He could think of no significant holiday or event, at least nothing about which Bridget would be keen. Surely if she was in danger of losing her apartment she would be in tears, not nervous with an unconvincing smile. Surely she wouldn't be so attached to the date if she was (heaven forbid) chucking him, or if she was somehow pregnant despite the care they'd taken to prevent it. Mentally he counted a few days back to her complaints of abdominal cramps. No, he assured himself. It couldn't have been that.

She spoke again, interrupting his thoughts. "Aren't you curious?" she prompted.

_Perhaps it's something she's done at work_, he thought, then struggled to recall if she'd told him about a special report or story she was supposed to have done today, but he did not think she had. Perhaps she had done something at work like calling the Tory leader a fuckwit whilst on-air, or worse luck, getting herself fired. He felt his irritation mounting. He was not going to play guessing games. He raised his brows, made encouraging motions with his hands even though he was getting impatient that she still hadn't gotten it out. "Well?"

"Oh, uh, okay," she said, looking surprised and somehow even more nervous. She still said nothing, which seemed unusual for a woman who had been accused, even by himself, of having no internal editor.

"Out with it then," he said sternly.

She blinked rapidly, then looked away. "Nothing." She took a big sip of wine. "Never mind."

"So what've you done?" he asked, voice still somewhat authoritarian, but allowing a bit of a smirk.

"_Nothing_, I said." She pouted, leaned back and cradled her wineglass before imbibing again. "Forget it. It was stupid of me anyway."

He drank from his own glass before reaching to pat her knee, then reached for her now-empty glass. "I'll get some more."

"Fine," she sulked.

Back into her kitchen he went, when he realised there was a small pink box sitting on the counter, the sort of box that he tended to associate with patisseries and baked goods. He drew his brows together then went nearer. The top did in fact have the name and address of a local patisserie stamped on top.

"Bridget, what's this in the box?" he asked, reaching to lift the lid.

"Ahhh! _No! Don't!_" she shouted, scrambling to her feet; she pounded across the flat to get to the box.

She was too late.

He stared down at the contents. It was in fact a cake; smoothly, beautifully frosted and expertly detailed with tiny pink roses. It wasn't the ivory-coloured cream frosting that surprised him, though he would have expected for her to have brought home chocolate. No, it was the writing on the cake that took his breath away, quite literally.

_Marry me, Mark?_

"I'm sorry," came her quiet, apologetic voice through his mental fog as she touched his arm.

He turned to look at her, certain that his multitude of questions would be written on his face. Only one bubbled to the surface. "Sorry for what?"

"It being Leap Day and all, I just wanted to—I don't know. Take the chance."

The vaguest of connections started to form in his mind, a distant recollection of a conversation he'd had with Natasha; as with most of her persistent hinting, he'd put it out of his mind, but she'd said with a predatory grin that she couldn't wait until the time there was a leap day to—

Propose.

She continued speaking in that same meek tone. "I never meant to… threaten your masculinity or anything."

"Bridget," he said; he did not want to allow emotion to overwhelm him, but it seeped through in his voice. How could it not? "Darling." Instead of saying anything more, he took her in his arms and held her tightly to him, then kissed her tenderly.

"I don't understand," she said, her lower lip trembling.

"What about a kiss don't you understand as a yes?"

She blinked in confusion. "I meant I thought you were angry that I—_yes_?"

Mark regarded her lovingly, a smile spreading across his face. "Where's my ring?"

"Really?" she asked before she threw her arms around his neck then kissed him; he returned it ardently. She broke away to hold him to her again. "Oh my _God_," she whispered through her tears of happiness. "I never had any idea before for how awful that sort of suspense is!"

He stroked her hair where it rested against the nape of her neck. "So you thought proposing to me would threaten my masculinity?" he murmured close to her ear.

"I thought you knew what I must have wanted to do, but you got so… serious and disapproving that I thought you might actually be cross with me it if I did, like I was taking away some rite of manhood."

He chuckled. "I honestly had no idea," he said. "I thought you were going to tell me you were… well, it doesn't matter."

She pulled back to look into his eyes. "Tell you I was what?" she asked with a cocked brow and a smirk.

"A number of possible catastrophes circled through my thoughts," he said, "none of which came to pass, and for that I am thankful."

As he kissed her again, he contemplated that everything about their relationship so far had been unconventional… so why _shouldn't_ she have been the one to pop the question?

_The end._

Note:

2006's calendar matches the first movie (in which Mark and Bridget get together); 2008 features a leap year day, which would fit this time frame.


End file.
